European Colonization 2.2 + 2.3

Spanish

Goals: 

• Set up large plantations in the Caribbean to produce cash crops to be exported to Europe

• Expand their land into Southwest United States

• Spread their Catholic religion to Natives

Colonial Development:

• Stopped using the encomienda system

• Use of enslaved Africans on plantations in the Caribbean - only plantation owners lived here - no large Spanish settlements in this area

Relationship w/ Natives:

• After expanding into present-day New Mexico & their maize crops, Spaniards faced the Pueblo revolt in 1680 and lost

  • Native population declined from 60,000 to 17,000 from 1600 to 1680

  • Popé led the revolt and they killed about 400 spanish colonizers and burned all churches to the ground

• 12 years later, they returned and reconquered the land in 1692

• Started using African slaves as their primary labor source

New France

• Slow to colonize b/c they were distracted with European wars and put many of their resources into other things

• 1608 Samuel de Champlain established the first permanent french settlement → Quebec

• Greater interest in trade than conquest → fish and fur trade

• Had alliances with Ojibwe

  • Indians benefitted the French b/c they were skilled in preparing beaver pelts for market

  • French benefitted the Indians by introducing iron cookware and farming tools and manufactured cloth

New Netherlands (Dutch)

• Henry Hudson led to the establishment of New Amsterdam 1624

• Although the Dutch were protestant, they had no interest in converting natives to their beliefs

• 1664, New Amsterdam was overtaken by Britain and renamed New York

New England

• motivations for Colonization was economics, religious freedom, and improvement of living conditions

  • Columbian Exchanged greatly helped economic improvement → extraction of resources and metals

• Many poor and landless people increased

• Colonies were either proprietary (under authority of the individual given a charter by the King), royal (under direct control of the King), or corporate (run by joint-stock companies)

• Representative governments - some democratic ideas - different colonies had different degrees of religious tolerance

• Relationship w/ Natives:

  • Natives thought that owning land meant being able to hunt on it, Britiains believed they could fence in the land the owned and not let anyone on it

  • British colonizers attempted to convert local Native tribes but both groups believed that their religion and culture was the superior one

Chesapeake Colonies

1607 James Town (Virginia) was established by Joint-Stock Company → economic model of funding private

• Famine, disease, drought, swampy conditions, and difficulty growing crops led to the Starving Time

  • 2/3 population died

• 1612 Tobacco became popular

  • Farmers needed more land, therefore they took Native lands

• Sharp divide of rich plantation owners and poor indentured servants or small farmers - only rich elites had a say in electing the governor

• 1619, the House of Burgesses was established and the first African slaves arrived in the colonies

Bacon’s Rebellion

• Governor Berkley of Virginia didn’t want to induce conflict with Natives (no response to concerns from indentured servants) - tension with Natives because they thought their pigs were being stolen

• Indentured servants weren’t receiving their promised land

• Bacon put together a rebellion and they destroyed multiple towns - rebellion slowed down and stopped when Bacon died

• Shift away from indentured servitude to the use of enslaved Africans as laborers

New England

• Settled by Pilgrims in 1620

• 14,000 Puritans migrated from England to the Americans in the 1630s

• Healthier → few disease carriers but many still died

• Came to establish a society and create family economics as farmers, not for profit

Middle Colonies: New York, New Jersey

• Near the sea and had lots of rivers and streams, thus they developed an export economy based on cereal crops

• Unequal class

  • Urban Mercahnts (Wealthy, up top) →

  • Artisans, Shopkeepers (middle class)→

  • Unskilled labores, orphans, widows, unemployed →

  • Enslaved Africans

• Pensylvania was founded by William Penn who was a quaker and a pacifist

British West Indies Southern Atlantic Coast

• Sugar, rice, tobacco, and indigo plantations - sugar became a profitable export

• Sugar cultivation is labor intensive - enslaved Africans were imported

• Rice cultivation took over sugar in the Carolinas

• Demographics:

  • Colonist, enslaved Africans, debt prisoners

Separatists (Pilgrims) - 1620

Wanted to escape Christianity, the Church of England. Orginally went to Holland but some left to the New World

• Arrived in Plymouth 1619 - 1620

• Created Mayflower Compact in November 11, 1620 - loose agreement to self-government from the King of England, James I

  • John Carver was the first to sign this AND was Plymouth Colony’s first governor

Puritans (1630)

Came to the New World seeking a “pure” church that was better than the Church of England

• Arrive in MA Bay 1630 - City on a Hill (John Winthrop)

• Winthrop delievers Christian Charity as a lecture to a group of colonists about to depart for MA Bay Colony

• Were strict → You must be a member of the Church to vote, only men

• Always paranoid b/c they all wanted to get into heaven

Indentured Servants

people who couldn’t afford the passage across the Atlantic, therefore, they signed a 7 year labor contract in which they worked to pay off their settlement fees